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Interval Licensing, LLC update

In our last update, we reported that Paul Allen’s company, Interval Licensing, LLC, which is the exclusive licensee of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,263,507; 6,034,652; 6,788,314; and 6,757,682, filed a patent infringement suit on November 27, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against 11 defendants, including AOL Inc., Apple Inc., eBay, Google, Netflix, Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc., Yahoo Inc., Facebook, and Google’s YouTube. The patents-in-suit allegedly relate to a browser for use in navigating a body of information, with particular application for browsing information represented by audiovisual data.

On December 10, 2010, Judge Marcha Pechman issued an order granting the defendants’ motions to dismiss, and gave Interval Licensing until December 28, 2010 to amend the complaint. Judge Pechman urged Interval Licensing to specify precisely which of the defendants' products, web sites, hardware, or software allegedly infringe its patents. According to Judge Pechman, Interval's complaint fell short of the heightened pleading standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. Interval Licensing then amended its complaint by adding specific defendants’ products and devices which allegedly infringe the patents.